Cold weekend hike

[Grathr]

Here's a litle story of a hike I was on last weekend. Enjoy!

A buddy of mine and I planned to go on a  canooing  trip last weekend. It was a trip we had planned for months. The only problem was that mother nature did not want us to. At this time last year we had 12 degrees celcius and nice sunny weather. Last weekend there was still a lot of snow and all the lakes around here where still frozen.
Canooing was out of the question, so we desided to convert the trip into a hike.

We had carefully studied the weather, and allt the weather men said it would be +1 degree Celsius at the coldest. This was good because our sleepingbags lowest comfortable temprature was 0 degrees Celsius.
The hike started out great. The weather was nice, and the snow was hard enough to carry us with our 20kg+ packs. But then Murphy and his smurfing laws, decided that that we had too much fun. The last half kilometer, the snow would not carry us at all and we had to wade through snow reaching above our knees.  We cursed and swore every step of the way until we finally reached the site we had planned for our camp. It was perfect! well worth the all the wading through the snow.

We set up the tent, ate some lunch, and decided to melt some snow for a cup of tea. We unpacked the Primus multifuel burner and set it up the way we always do. Murphy showed his ugly face again. It would not work properly and squirted fuel everywhere. (we had tested it before we went out) Many atempts and a lot of swearing later we concluded that it needed a new needle, wich we hadn't. Luckily we had brought a kettle that could easily be hung over a fire. We had planned to melt snow to replenish our watersupply, so we had to gather alot of firewood for water and cooking. We ended up felling three small dead trees, wich was fun, and dragged them throug the snow back to camp. (not so much fun)

We had planned to have steaks with mashed postatoes for dinner, (way better than the freezedried foods) so we decided to cook it caveman style on sticks. It tasted wonderfull! (se picture below) Take that Murphy!
But Murphy had one more trick up his sleeve, and it was a big one.

 As darkness fell we noticed that it was getting colder, and we decided to retreat into our sleeping bags. We where not worried, the weathermen after all, had told us it would not drop below 0 degrees Celsius. This was when Murphy decided to play his final card. In the middle of the night the tempereture suddenly dropped to -10 degrees Celsius. We spent the rest of the night shivereing in our sleeping bags wearing all our wool clothes. My boots froze solid, and I had to put them under my knees under my sleepingbag together with the waterbottles to thaw them.
Morning finally arrived and we decided to break camp early and go home.

All in all it was a pretty nice hike, and we had a lot of fun. But I have to admit that if we had not been properly prepared, (good quality clothes and boots, extra dry set of wool clothing and socks, axe, saw, sturdy knifes, kettle that can hang over a open fire, knowledge of how to build a fire, and cold weather experience) we could have been in real trouble. We had virtually no cellphone coverage at all, and noone would miss us until the planned pickup in the afternoon the next day. The trip also reminded me of something I had learned ten years ago in the army and forgot: operating a MT with cold numb fingers is bloody difficult. Something worth thinking about when choosing a MT for the outdoors. I even had trouble buttoning the snap on my Fallkniven sheath on the last day.
Below are some tool and food pictures from the trip.

[Millhouse]

Nice writeup and pics. Thanks for sharing.

[Top-Gear-24]

Great story, and very nice pics  .

[ducttapetech]

Sweet read + nice pics = kick ass!

sent from Ducttapetech's roaming device

[Lynn LeFey]

Very cool story. A friend of mine and I had a similar experience with a early spring trip into the Smoky Mountains. Trip started off warm, 70F (21C), and was great the first day. the second day plunged to about 25F (-4C) with heavy wind and freezing rain. Our stove failed, our backup failed, our charcoal failed, our fire ribbon failed, and we ended up basically jogging 12 miles (all downhill... very hard on the knees) back to our vehicle, and going to a motel for the night.

There is a terrible chain restaurant called Western Sizzlin' which is like a super cheap steakhouse and buffet. We had dinner there that night, and it was the best food we ever ate.

EDIT: Also, your caveman steak looks TASTY!

[Gareth]

Great story mate.   I love cold weather hiking and camping, though wading through knee deep snow I agree is no fun at all and is seriously hard work.   Coldest night out I ever did we measured as -18C, seriously cold night and we also had to deal with frozen boots and water bottles.  That same trip I managed to snap both of the poles for my smurfing tent, they were aluminium poles and I suspect the cold had made them very brittle.  I've since invested in a warmer sleeping bag and gotten a new tent.

[Breezy12]

awesome story, and great point about being prepared. 

I also had an experience with my boots being frozen solid -- camping trip up on the mountain years ago.  The first night it was fine, hovered right around 25F (-4C), but the second night a cold front came in, and it dropped down to 6F (-14C), and the wind picked up substantially as well.  I remember waking up and having a good laugh with my buddies because the wind had pulled up the tent stakes out of the snow, so the only thing holding it down was the weight of our bodies and our gear.  I really don't recall WHY this was so hilarious, but I definitely remember all of us laughing quite a bit... but then we tried to put on our boots, and the laughter came to an abrupt halt.    packing up the campsite that morning was no fun.

oh, and I have to agree with Lynn -- your caveman steaks look amazing!